on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, European funds for Hungary were frozen because of concerns about whether this money was reaching its legitimate beneficiaries – Hungarian citizens. Years of misuse of this money had shown us that most of the time, it landed in the pockets of oligarchs and helped enrich Orbán’s friends and close relatives. This has ultimately dramatically reinforced the powers of this new autocrat. There is little reason to think the outcome would be different today. It seems the right boxes have been ticked on the right forms, yes, indeed, but no implementation. And we are facing a lot of opacity about the dialogue between the Commission and the Hungarian Government. But above all, one major problem remains the allocation of cases in the judiciary. Through all of these years, the very rare cases of political and corruption trials would land in the hands of judges close to the regime, always the very same judges with a very mysterious but very convenient allocation system. To have serious restoration of the rule of law in Hungary, the allocation of political corruption cases is what needs to be addressed first. But now I want to be very clear on one thing where I feel that we have been misleading stakeholders, ambassadors and citizens. Cutting EU funds to Hungary means protecting our money and it is good. But it will not resolve the systemic rule of law collapse in the country. For this to happen, we need political will and courage coming from the Council. It is a straightforward democratic political process that is clearly written in our rules and Treaties: recommendations, sanctions and the withdrawal of voting rights. When Viktor Orbán no longer has voting rights in the name of Hungary, then he will also no longer be able to use his people and his nation as a leverage for his own benefit. For a few days now, new billboards are depicting Ursula von der Leyen and the Commission as new scapegoats and advertising on an upcoming anti-EU referendum in Hungary. This national consultation named on the defence of our sovereignty as 11 questions, all of them concerning Brussels. Full of lies and misperception. It declares that Brussels wants to create migrant ghettos in Hungary, financial support from Brussels to Palestinian organisation has also reached Hamas, and it finishes with this: they – they being us, of course – want to influence Hungarian politics using money from Brussels and overseas. How are we letting this happen?